Keep Nassau Beautiful
Press Release
January 25, 2020
Keep Nassau Beautiful (KNB) is a charitable and educational organization, affiliated with Keep America Beautiful, and its purpose is to educate citizens in ways of improving the community’s appearance.
Lynda Bell, Executive Director of KNB addressed the Board of County Commissioners on January 15th, 2020, to discuss two of the organization’s major initiatives.
Planting Nassau’s Future is a recently launched program which has two components — Adopt-A-Tree and the Legacy Tree Project. The ultimate goal is to have 300 trees planted across Nassau County between December 1 and April 30. They have partnered with the Nassau County Extension Service and will be hosting workshops to provide training to residents to ensure the best chance of survival for the trees which will be of nursery stock, not seedlings. Trees are also available for businesses and organizations.
Another part of Planting Nassau’s Future is the Legacy Tree Project which is dependent upon contributions of $500, $750 or $1000 with these trees to be planted in public spaces. Fernandina Beach has already provided six spaces for Legacy Trees. Taco Pope, Assistant County Manager, while wanting more details, expressed the County’s support of “a progressive and robust tree planting program.”
Another part of the mission of Keep Nassau Beautiful is to reduce litter and waste and to increase the rate of recycling. To that end, KNB has sponsored events to collect household hazardous waste. These events have continued to grow – both in participation of county residents (measured by the number of vehicles that show up) and the amount of waste collected. The first event, held in 2013, witnessed 331 vehicles. In 2019, that number grew to 622 cars and trucks.
Historically, Bell noted that the largest material collected during these household hazardous waste collection events is latex paint. In fact, latex paint accounts for 37% of all waste collected — some 11.6 tons at their October 2019 event. However, as Bell pointed out, once latex paint is solidified (using kitty litter, for instance), it is no longer a hazardous material.
A complete copy of the presentation can be accessed on the County’s website or it can be viewed at https://www.nassauclerk.com/watch-meetings/ (January 15).
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In addition, the website for Keep Nassau Beautiful can be found at https://www.keepnassaubeautiful.org. Or, call 904-261-0165